


The Catalyst

by franticatlantic



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Choking, Dirty Talk, M/M, Punk!Tyler, unprotected sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:13:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8618482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/franticatlantic/pseuds/franticatlantic
Summary: "Suits you, I guess."
"That I'm a fuckboy?"
"That you're a whore."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is for an [anon](http://vintagetyler.tumblr.com/post/153439065123/i-love-ur-writing-could-u-maybe-do-one) on tumblr who wanted it. enjoy!

The guy with the horn-rimmed glasses gathers his clothes from around the bed while Tyler reclines against the pillows with a cigarette. Smoke swirls up and around his head, tendrils catching in his hair as he reaches out to tap the cigarette over the ashtray on his nightstand, black fingernails catching the light from the lamp. It’s an antique, straight from his grandmother’s house when she passed away the week Tyler was moving into his dorm. A relic from a dead woman.

“You’ll call me, right?” Horn-rimmed glasses guy looks so hopefully at him that Tyler can’t help but nod, taking another drag from the cigarette.

“Of course,” he exhales on a cloud of smoke, and he can see the guy’s glasses fogging up again. He had him keep them on while they fucked, the guy’s freckled thighs shoved back to his chest while Tyler drove his cock in in in and flooded the condom. The guy came with his glasses askew, tilted tipsily down the left side of his face.

Tyler had kissed him, which was probably his first mistake.

His second being the way he’d lain too close afterward.

Third, the words he let slide out with the smog from his lungs.

“I’m holding you to that,” glasses says, smile bright and blinding even behind the screen of smoke.

_Too eager_ , Tyler thinks, but returns the smile anyway. Fourth mistake.

The guy settles one knee on the bed, hands going to the buttons of his shirt like he wants to take it off again. Tyler stills, cigarette burning its way down to his fingers. He’s completely nude, atop the covers, and glasses has just gotten fully dressed again.

“Come on,” the guy hisses, grabs onto Tyler’s ankle. “Let’s go one more round. Then I can stay the night and we can get breakfast in the dining hall tomorrow.”

Outside, a car alarm starts beeping. Tyler stares at the guy and doesn’t say anything.

The smile falls from glasses’ face, his knee slides from the bed, and he grabs the bag he came in with, the one he tossed onto Tyler’s desk chair just before Tyler slammed him up against the wall and gave him a dark hickey on the side of his neck. The same hickey he can see peeking out above the guy’s collar now. “Do you even remember my name?” The guy’s voice sounds choked up, like he might cry.

Tyler thinks. Corey? Chris? Caleb?

Again he doesn’t speak, just brings the cigarette to his lips, drags on it, and blows the smoke out into the room. The car alarm stops.

Glasses shakes his head. “I thought you were different, honestly. But you’re just like all the others, aren’t you?”

When he leaves, he does so with a slam of the door that shakes the walls. The girl in the dorm next door bangs once, hard, on the wall behind Tyler’s bed and yells something like, “again?”

Because this is not the first time a dissatisfied customer has stormed out of Tyler’s dorm and slammed the door. And to be completely honest with you he’s had a lot more slammed than just the door before. He’s sure it won’t be the last.

From his desk, his phone dings and lights up.

With a grunt, he rises from the bed and stretches, steps over his discarded combat boots and rests the cigarette in his mouth, hanging limply from between his lips. It’s a text from Jenna.

_party @ 392 fifth ave off campus_   
_tomorrow night_

This among hundreds of other texts from her, all with details about weekend house parties. He’s sure if you scrolled all the way to the top, though that might take you a while considering they’ve been friends since Freshman year, you might find some normal messages, from when they first exchanged numbers. But since about November of 2013 their sole correspondence through texts has been Jenna informing Tyler of the latest parties. All other interactions they have are in person at said parties before they both go home with a guy and cease speaking until next weekend at another party.

_Got it._   
_I’ll be there._

He lets his phone clatter to the desk again and goes to the nightstand, where he sits and smokes the rest of his cigarette before stubbing it out in the ashtray. Wind whistles through the crack in the window and another car alarm (or maybe the same one) blares again.

Tyler lays down with the lamp still on.

-

He has work to do for the Theatre elective he took to fill his schedule this semester, some kind of monologue he has to memorize and recite. But getting drunk and then his rocks off sounds like a much more appealing alternative. He decides to memorize the monologue tomorrow when he’s hungover and sipping at the tea his mother packed him.

So he finds himself in a dark corner of the living room at a house he’s never been to before, talking to a guy with platinum blond hair and wide, round eyes who keeps leaning into Tyler’s space and touching his leather jacket, running his fingers over the zippers and laughing loudly at everything Tyler says, even if what he says isn’t meant to be funny.

Tyler likes boys who are easy, but not too easy. Even glasses had made him work for it a little.

Growing bored, Tyler starts to look around for another guy. But he knows he picked platinum blond (he’ll call him Vince for now) for a reason - because there are no other guys here Tyler is attracted to. Vince reaches out and touches Tyler’s jaw, tips his face back toward him. “Hey,” he drawls, already drunk off half a can of Smirnoff Ice. “Don’t tell me you’re losing interest already.”

Tyler glances once toward the kitchen, and then back to Vince, who’s swaying where he stands. “Actually, I am. You might wanna sober up before going home.”

And he leaves Vince standing there looking dumbfounded as he picks his way through the dancing bodies in the living room and into the kitchen, where the music is at least somewhat muffled. He stands at the kitchen sink looking down and swigging out of his Coors Light. Maybe he’ll just go home without picking up, even though that hasn’t happened in three years.

He picks at his lower lip and stares out of the window above the sink, sees the people falling onto the lawn laughing and shouting, drunk off their asses. He actually should leave before the police are called for a noise complaint. Tyler knows not everyone here is 21.

“You look lost.”

He whirls, almost drops his beer in the process.

Standing in the kitchen doorway, outlined by the red Solo cups and handles of alcohol littering the counters, is a guy with bright blue hair and a smile that reminds Tyler of bar fights and cigarette ash - vicious and sharp. He has a nose ring and a sleeve of tattoos up one arm. His hands are shoved into his pockets, making the skin around his knuckles bunch up.

For once in his life Tyler has no idea what to say.

What comes out is, “I’m not lost.”

Blue hair laughs, showing shallow dimples and major laugh lines that make Tyler’s knees weak. He comes closer. “It’s a figure of speech. I meant, why are you in here and not out there?” He hooks a thumb back toward the living room.

“Getting another drink,” Tyler lies, and hefts his beer. Blue hair knows it’s a lie because his eyes track the movement of Tyler’s bottle, which is already half empty.

“Right.” He closes the rest of the distance between them and sticks his hand out. “I’m Josh.”

Tyler takes it. “I’m-“

“I know who you are.”

Tyler raises his eyebrows and his hand twitches where Josh has yet to release it, gripping hard.

“Tyler Joseph, Film major…fuckboy, if I’m not mistaken?” Josh grins that daunting smile again and Tyler falters. “I’m friends with Jenna.”

“Oh,” he exhales in a rush, and Josh releases his hand with a brush of his thumb over Tyler’s carpals. “What kinda lame rumors has that bitch been spreading about me now?”

“Not rumors, to hear her tell it.” Josh reclines against the nearby counter and juts his hips out suggestively. His dark eyes are running the length of Tyler’s body, from his combat boots all the way to the tips of his dark hair. “Suits you, I guess.”

Tyler chuckles. “That I’m a fuckboy?”

“That you’re a whore.”

In the process of bringing his beer to his lips Tyler stops. He watches Josh.

Josh hangs his head and rubs his fingers over his brow. “Shit. Sorry. That was supposed to come off sexy.”

“Calling someone a whore is supposed to be sexy?”

Face going red, Josh presses his hands together and steps away from the counter. “It was supposed to be like, dirty talk. I’m so sorry. I don’t care how many people you’ve slept with, I swear. I just…was hoping to be the next?”

“So you’re hitting on me.”

“Yes.”

“By calling me a whore.”

“I am _so_ sorry.” He looks it, brown eyes pleading with Tyler, making their way down to the spiked choker Tyler’s wearing and then back up to meet his gaze.

Tyler can’t wait to see him wrecked.

“I don’t really mind,” he says truthfully, and sets his beer on the island. “I won’t try to hide it since you know Jenna and she knows all about me. I am a whore. I’ve slept with a lot of guys.”

“And I don’t care about that, I promise.”

“Did you follow me in here on purpose?”

Josh goes even redder, rubs a hand at the back of his neck. “I saw you talking to that blond guy. I figured you were gonna go home with him. So when you came in here instead…yeah, I followed you.”

“You must really want it, then, huh?” Tyler steps forward, into Josh’s space, and Josh doesn’t step back. He cups Josh through the front of his ripped jeans, finds him hard, and something changes in a split second.

There’s a low growl in Tyler’s ear and he’s being pushed back against the edge of the sink, Josh’s hands gripping at his wrists, holding them by his sides. “I want it,” Josh affirms, and scrapes his teeth across the very front of Tyler’s throat.

For maybe the first time ever Tyler’s lips part and he lets out a whimper, high and aching under the bright kitchen lights.

Josh laughs, lets Tyler’s wrists go in favor of cupping his jaw in both hands and pressing their foreheads together. “You are a whore, aren’t you?”

Tyler rolls his eyes. “Already said-“

Josh shuts him up with a dirty grind of his crotch into Tyler’s pelvis. Tyler almost falls he feels so weak, but Josh holds him up, the small of his back digging into the counter. “Tonight you’re _my_ whore.”

All Tyler can do is nod.

-

Last night was a mistake, bringing glasses back to his dorm.

So on their way out the door, past pouting platinum blond guy, Tyler asks if they can do this at Josh’s place.

“Sure.” Josh actually opens the car door for him. “I have an apartment off campus, if that’s okay?”

That’s perfect for Tyler, who will just hail a cab back to his dorm when they’re done.

At Josh’s apartment, Tyler loses his boots in the living room, his jacket and shirt in the hallway, and finally his pants in the bedroom, which is littered with posters of all of Tyler’s favorite bands.

Fingers working to unclasp his choker, he mutters, “Similar taste.”

In more ways than one, apparently, as Josh stills Tyler with firm hands. “Leave it on.”

He’s reminded of last night, when he told the guy to keep his glasses on, just to see how they’d skew when Tyler fucked him, how completely trashed he’d look like that.

Tyler throat works against the choker, swallowing convulsively as Josh takes his wrists just over the line of too rough and walks him back toward the wall, where he pins Tyler’s hands above his head with one hand and circles his fingers around Tyler’s hard cock with the other.

He doesn’t jerk him off, though, just lets his fingers rest against the swell of Tyler’s lower belly and presses the length of his body to Tyler’s. Josh is still fully clothed and he rasps against Tyler wherever they touch, especially the rough material of his jeans on Tyler’s thighs, making him shake.

There’s a low snicker in his ear as Josh dips his head, starts sucking on the junction of Tyler’s shoulder, worrying his teeth over the skin and pulling until Tyler chokes. “Not used to this?”

“I’m normally in your position,” Tyler says cockily. Well, as cockily as he can with his wrists held above him and Josh still clothed while he’s completely naked save for the choker around his neck.

Josh makes a little sympathetic noise, clicks his tongue and grinds himself against Tyler’s bare cock, jeans rasping over him. “You’re my whore, remember?” Tyler whimpers and turns his head to the side, but Josh turns him back with the hand previously around his cock. With it gone, the front of Josh’s pants are able to grate fully over Tyler, who yelps and flinches. “Poor thing. On the bed.”

When Josh releases him, Tyler climbs onto the bed and reclines back, but Josh taps his waist. “Nu-uh. Hands and knees.” He’s still making no effort to take his clothes off.

Shakily, Tyler flips over. His cock bobs below him, pink from where Josh’s pants rubbed against it.

The bed dips and Josh’s hands go to Tyler’s thighs, pushing them further apart so that Tyler has to work to keep himself up, most of his weight on his arms as a sharp burn starts to make its way up his legs. “You ever bottomed before?”

“A few times.”

Josh now presses the crotch of his jeans against Tyler’s ass, scraping against the sensitive skin there instead as Tyler tosses his head and fists the sheets. Leaning up, Josh holds his hand out in front of Tyler’s face. “Spit.”

Tyler does so, a few globs drizzling out onto Josh’s cupped palm. His saliva smells like stale beer.

“More.”

Hocking in the back of his throat, Tyler spits a bigger dollop onto Josh’s hand, bubbling and phlegmy. For a minute Tyler thinks Josh is just going to rub it in his face, literally.

But then his hand disappears and there’s the crisp sound of Josh unzipping his jeans, followed by the squelch of Tyler’s spit on his cock. “I’m gonna fuck you like this. And I want you to touch yourself. But I don’t want you to come. Okay?”

Tyler nods and reaches under himself, weight now just on one arm. He runs his fingers through the mess at the head of his dick, strands of cum webbing between his knuckles as he spreads it around and starts jerking slowly.

Josh presses himself to Tyler’s hole and Tyler has just enough time to think _no condom_ before Josh is pushing in. Tyler rocks forward with a shout, but Josh pulls him back with his fingers hooked into Tyler’s choker. His head is craned back, choker digging into his neck and cutting off his air.

Everything hurts - Josh’s dick scraping inside of him with only spit for lube, the choker squeezing at the front of his throat, his dick hard and throbbing between his legs. But instead of becoming panicked and wanting to ask Josh to stop, Tyler closes his eyes and basks in it. He’s getting harder, unable to touch himself like Josh asked with the way Josh is pulling him back, but he can feel himself dripping onto the sheets.

He’s staring up at the Black Flag poster Josh has hung above his bed, vision graying at the edges, when Josh releases him and he slumps to the mattress, unable to hold himself up. He lands in the pool of cum his cock already drooled out and his thighs still burn with the way Josh is pounding into him, hands crushing Tyler’s hips.

“Told you to touch yourself, slut.” With every lunge of Josh’s cock into him his jeans - and now the sharp edges of his belt - dig into Tyler’s ass and thighs.

Tyler lets out a splintered moan and rolls just enough to be able to worm a hand beneath him and start jacking himself off as best he can again, dick twitching where it’s caught between him and the bed.

Josh leans up and braces his forearms on Tyler’s shoulders, pressing the top half of his torso and his face into the pillows. “Nothing but a fucking slut, taking my dick so well. So hungry for it, even though you’re so tight. And you love it, don’t you? Tell me you love it.”

“I love it.” Tyler’s voice is broken, fragmented and zipping up at the very last tendrils as Josh curls his fingers back beneath his choker and pulls.

“You like when I choke you, too, I can tell. Not many people would do this for you. It’s hard to find a good dom these days, I know. But I’m here. And I see how hard this makes you, what I’m doing to you. You’ll never want anything else after this. Just me, choking you out and making you beg for it, always.”

Tyler tries to say Josh’s name, but he can’t because he can’t breathe. His chest is tight, Josh’s cock a solid pressure inside of him. His dick starts to spurt and he tries to hide it because Josh told him not to come, but it’s too late.

Josh is yanking viciously on Tyler’s choker and Tyler’s eyes go wide, a sharp pain shooting up his neck. “Thought I told you not to come,” Josh growls.

Tyler slaps the hand not currently trapped beneath him on Josh’s arm and Josh releases the studded collar. Tyler draws a shaky breath in, wind rasping through his throat as he tries to rise to his elbows at least, coughing and spluttering.

“You okay?” Josh sounds genuinely worried and that sets Tyler at ease, one of Josh’s hands settling warm on his back, rubbing small circles.

It takes him a minute to answer because it takes him a minute to decide whether he’s okay. He can breathe and even though there’s still a dull ache in the side of his neck with every beat of his heart, when he swallows he can do so easily. So he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

“Can I keep going?”

He thinks about this, too, and then nods again. He wants to get Josh off.

On any other night he’d be where Josh is, ramming into some twink and talking dirty to him like Josh is doing right now. But this isn’t any other night and Josh isn’t some random twink. And Tyler just came harder than he has the past three years.

Josh wraps a strong arm around Tyler’s waist and draws him back with the smooth skin of his forearm grazing Tyler’s sensitive cock. Tyler keens and arches his back and Josh shushes him, covers Tyler’s back with his chest and puts his lips at Tyler’s ear.

“Can I come inside?”

Out of his mind with his orgasm and the high of oxygen returning to him and _Josh_ everywhere, Tyler nods. “Yes. Please. Come in me, I want it. I need it.”

Josh retreats and Tyler expects him to grab his hips and start taking him to pound town again, but instead his hands are trailing softly down Tyler’s sides and he’s giving one, two, three more gentle pushes in and then coming with a kiss to the very center of Tyler’s back, on his spine.

Tyler gives another little garbled moan as he feels Josh’s come cascading into him, splashing against his insides as he clenches weakly around it. There’s some dribbling out and down his thighs when Josh turns them, presses Tyler onto his side as he lays behind him, softening cock still inside.

They’re spooning, Tyler realizes, as Josh tightens the arm around his middle. The cum on his thighs is now trickling off of him and onto Josh where they’re pressed together. Which is everywhere. And Josh still has all his clothes on.

“You’re gonna stay,” Josh says, before Tyler can speak, not giving him a choice. “I know you want to leave, I know that’s how you do things. But you’re gonna stay tonight.”

“Mmm, who says I wanna leave?” Tyler likes the feeling of Josh’s chest pressed to his back, the way Josh’s breath ghosts over his neck and his shoulders, their legs twisting together.

“Every guy you’ve ever slept with most likely says it. But I’m not letting you go. Because that’s not how _I_ do things.”

The commanding tone in Josh’s voice makes him shudder, and when Josh feels it he laughs, sweetly into Tyler’s ear.

“And how do you do things?”

“I’d like to shower together in the morning, maybe catch some breakfast, come back here and watch TV. It’s really nice, I think you’d like it.”

“I do have homework to do tomorrow, buddy.”

Josh shrugs. “Bring it here. We’ll do it together.”

Tyler thinks there’s no way he’ll be bringing a Shakespeare monologue to Josh’s apartment to practice it in front of him. Out of the question.

“Hey.” Josh noses at Tyler’s jaw. “I really am sorry for calling you a whore. It was supposed to be hot, y’know? Like calling someone a slut during sex or something like that.”

It’s Tyler who shrugs this time. “I really don’t mind, dude. Like I said, I am a whore. I’ve slept with way too many people to keep track of them all.” Admitting it out loud isn’t nearly as fun as the actual conquests themselves were.

Josh can tell. He presses gently on Tyler’s arm and turns him so that Tyler’s on his back, Josh’s cock popping out of him with a squish and a gush of cum that makes Tyler close his eyes and moan.

Something dark passes in front of him and Tyler’s being kissed before he knows it, something that is strictly against the rules. No kissing during sex is one of them, but he frequently breaks that rule if he’s really feeling himself. No kissing after sex is the rule he never breaks because then people get the wrong idea.

He cups a hand around Josh’s neck and opens his mouth, flicks their tongues together with a trembling breath that Josh catches.

Josh holds himself above Tyler as they part, a thumb coming up to brush over Tyler’s cheek. “If you like hanging out with me tomorrow…do you think we could do this again? I really enjoyed it.”

“Maybe.” Tyler pulls Josh back down beside him. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Sleep on it,” Josh mutters into Tyler’s shoulder.

Maybe, just maybe, Tyler thinks, he might practice his stupid Shakespearean monologue with Josh tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some people asked for a sequel so here it is!

Tyler’s ass hurts when he wakes up, but Josh is there with a Tylenol and a glass of water. He’s on the edge of the bed when Tyler rolls over, proffering the tiny white pill in the palm of his hand. Tyler blinks and groans and curls his fingers over Josh’s palm, feels the ridges there and remembers how he spit into it last night. He already feels awkward.

“Must fuck guys with no lube a lot, huh?” He says, to diffuse the tension, pops the pill in his mouth and chases it down with the cool water. It soothes his throat, which is also feeling raw from where Josh choked him last night. He tugs on the choker he’s still wearing and grimaces.

Josh laughs with his head thrown back, light playing in his cobalt hair. “I just know how it is.”

Tyler quirks an eyebrow.

Josh shrugs. “Even you said you’d bottomed a couple times before.”

“I’m sure any self-respecting gay man has, just to see if they like it.”

“Some of us more than others,” Josh intones, and when he leaves to take the glass back to the kitchen Tyler sees that he’s gathered the clothes Tyler lost throughout the apartment last night and piled them neatly on the desk.

He sinks back down to the pillows and has nothing clever to say to Josh’s joke, just watches the stack of clothes, his leather jacket thrown over the back of the chair, for a long time until Josh reappears.

“You ready for that shower?”

-

He lets Josh shampoo his hair and wash his back with a gentle hand on his waist. It reminds him of when he was little and he and Zack used to take baths together. Not in a weird incestuous way, just in the fact that it’s comforting, having someone do that kind of stuff to you. Especially because Tyler hasn’t bathed or showered with anyone since he was about 6 years old.

Josh turns him around and Tyler sees him smile through the gloom of the water misting around them. “Not so bad, is it?”

Tyler shrugs and reaches forward, where Josh’s cock is hanging flaccid between his legs. “You want me to-“

“No.” Josh jerks away from Tyler’s touch, but he’s back in close proximity soon enough, with a hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “No sex today. One of my rules.”

Tyler sighs exaggeratedly. “Probably should have told me that before inviting me to stay the night, yeah?”

Josh looks hurt so Tyler rolls his eyes and runs a wet hand up his arm, the one with the sleeve of tattoos. “Joking.” Then he brushes the backs of his knuckles over the row of bottles along the shower wall and inclines his head toward Josh’s hair. “You got anything special for that?”

Looking a little more relaxed, Josh grabs a bottle of something labeled color lock and plants it in Tyler’s outstretched hand before turning around.

Josh is actually a bit shorter than he his, so it’s easy for him to squirt the shampoo in his palm and suds it into Josh’s hair, massaging his scalp and earning himself a quiet moan for his efforts.

That makes him grin, walking forward carefully atop the porcelain and pressing himself along Josh’s back. “You sure you don’t wanna break that rule? Gotta say, seeing you like this makes me wanna try the other way around.” To prove his point, he grabs gently at the swell of Josh’s ass, which is pale and supple and screaming for Tyler’s dick in it.

A laugh as Josh turns back, quickly, and starts to rinse the shampoo from his hair. “Even if I were interested in breaking a rule, I don’t bottom. Ever. So.”

“You really hate it that much?”

“Doesn’t get me off, so yeah. Why would I try again?”

Tyler shrugs and sets the bottle of shampoo back on the shelf just as Josh leans in, brushing damp lips over Tyler’s. They aren’t touching anywhere else, Josh’s hands still in his hair, but Tyler feels a warmth that seeps all the way down to his toes.

“I hope that was okay,” Josh says, and it’s so low Tyler can barely hear it over the thundering of the shower. “I just didn’t want you to think…like, because of the no sex thing. I didn’t want you to think I didn’t want you or-“

“No, you’re good.” Tyler shakes his head and slips forward falteringly, winds both arms around Josh’s shoulders, rippling with water. “Can we do it again?”

Josh nods and Tyler kisses him. They stay like that under the scalding water until Josh is pink and Tyler’s flushed a deeper shade of golden brown, until neither of them can breathe and they’re swallowing more water than saliva.

Only then does Josh turn the shower off and step out, hand outstretched to help Tyler over as well.

Tyler goes for the rack of towels he sees in the corner, but Josh is gone when he turns.

“Josh?”

In the bedroom, Josh is pulling his clothes on still soaking wet, shirt sticking to him as his head pops out through the neck and water sprays everywhere.

“What the hell?” Tyler laughs.

Josh gives a lopsided smile and blushes high on his cheeks, like he knows what he’s doing is weird.

“You probably should have warned me you were a serial killer before inviting me to stay, too.” Tyler has his towel wrapped securely around his waist, idling by the bathroom door.

“Dude, there’s literally no point in drying off. Air drying is a thing.”

“Okay, psychopath.” Tyler nods slowly and makes sure to go slow while he dries off, getting every nook and cranny of his body dry before flinging the damp towel at Josh.

“Forgot your ass crack, asshole,” Josh says good-naturedly.

“You wanna get that for me?” He’s only half kidding.

But Josh just gives him a small smile and leaves him to get dressed in his clothes from last night.

-

“Do you wanna stop by campus to get your homework?”

Outside, the leaves change color with every passing tree. A few oranges and yellows flutter down onto the windshield, stuck by morning dew, and Josh has to turn the wipers on.

“Sure. Then we can eat at the dining hall?”

Josh shakes his head. “I was thinking of taking you somewhere off campus actually. One of my favorite places.”

Tyler doesn’t have much money to be spending on food off campus (the little he does have goes toward the pack of smokes he buys each week) when he could just use a meal swipe in the caf, but he doesn’t want Josh to think he’s cheap. So he nods and when they pull up outside of Tyler’s residence hall Josh lets him climb out.

“No chickening out, okay? I will stake this place out.”

“Okay, Jesse James.”

Josh makes finger guns at him.

“I’ll probably be a few minutes packing my shit so if anyone pulls up you can pull around-“

“I know the campus, Tyler. I go to school here, too. If you come out and I’m not here I’ll be around the side.”

“Cool.”

In his dorm he packs all his books into his bag just to be sure and because he remembers there’s a History quiz he also has to study for. He decides to change as well while he’s at it, brush his teeth and try his best to fix his unruly hair.

It’s as he’s spitting a mess of toothpaste into the sink that his phone rings. The caller ID says Josh, even though he can’t remember giving Josh his number last night. Or vice versa.

“Hello…?”

“You’re taking quite a while up there. Do I need to gas the place?”

“I decided to change my clothes so I wouldn’t look like a total hobo while we got breakfast. How did you-“

“I’m an IT major,” Josh says before Tyler can even ask. “I unlocked your phone last night, I hope that’s okay. I only did this, I swear.”

By all means, Tyler should be pissed. Or at least scared out of his wits that Josh is going to become a crazy stalker who just unlocks Tyler’s phone whenever he wants and puts peoples’ numbers into it because he’s afraid Tyler won’t call him back. Instead, he feels oddly flattered. No guy has ever tried _that_ hard before.

“I, um…is that the kinda stuff they teach you in IT? I need to switch my major.” He hopes the delight isn’t too obvious in his voice, though he knows it is.

“I learned in one class how to unlock my own phone if I forget the passcode, and we were given express instructions not to use it on other phones because people can sue for breaches of privacy and all that, but. I had a lot of fun last night, so.” A pause as Tyler slips his shoes on. “You really changed for the date?”

“Date?” But he’s smiling as he grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder. “I wasn’t aware that’s what we were calling it.”

There’s a grainy laugh down the line. “Well, what would you call it?”

“I’d call it breakfast.”

“Breakfast it is, then.”

-

“I really hope it didn’t creep you out that I put my number in your phone,” Josh says as he holds the door open for Tyler to step into the restaurant. “You can delete it if things don’t go well today…if they aren’t going well.”

Tyler gives Josh a conciliatory pat on the arm. “They’re going fine. You can relax. I’m actually having fun so far.” Which he never thought he’d say about an actual date.

Breakfast. This is just breakfast.

A peppy hostess who recognizes Josh seats them at a booth in the back and lets Tyler know her name is Carlie and if he needs anything to let her know.

As she flounces away Tyler looks at Josh. “Come here often?”

Josh laughs and opens his menu and all of a sudden Tyler can’t help but imagine Josh here with every other guy he’s ever taken home. Which is quite hypocritical of him, he realizes, because he does the same thing. He just doesn’t take his conquests out in public.

He opens his menu as well just as they’re joined by a guy with floppy dark hair, full lips, and dark brown eyes. His name tag says his name is Brendon and - wouldn’t you know it - he knows Josh, too.

“Josh, man!” Is his greeting, and he extends his arm for that one-handed not-quite-shake all bro’s do.

Tyler watches with a grave expression.

“You just get here?” Josh asks.

“Hell no. I’ve been here since midnight. Got me pulling them graveyard shifts.” Brendon rolls his eyes and they fall on Tyler. “And who do we have here?”

“This is Tyler.”

“Hi, Tyler. I’m Brendon. Friend of Josh’s.”

But when Brendon extends his hand for Tyler to shake Tyler ignores it.

“Uh,” Brendon says, and curls his fingers into a fist. “Can I get you guys something to drink?”

“The usual,” Josh says, just as Tyler says, “Coffee. Black.”

Brendon nods and then leans in to lay a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “It’s so good to see you, man.” As he turns away his fingers brush the top of Josh’s bicep, under the sleeve of his Thrasher tee.

“Wow,” Tyler mutters, before Josh can say anything. “Is he obvious or what?”

Josh gives a little confused shake of his head. “What’re you talking about?”

“You fucked him, too?”

“Excuse me?”

“You took him here after and he loved it so much he just had to get a job here? Or - lemme guess - this is where you two met. While you were on a date with another guy. That’s so rich.”

Josh’s eyebrows knit uncomfortably together. “Pardon me, Tyler, but you really have no room to talk.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

Tyler is up and out of the booth in less than two seconds, headed for the door, pulling his phone from his pocket to delete Josh’s number. Then he’ll call a cab and head home and forget this ever happened. Maybe he’ll pick up again tonight and Josh will become just a distant memory, something that could have happened.

“Tyler, wait.”

“Tyler?”

Josh is calling to him from back in the restaurant just as Tyler, nose buried in his phone, is barreling into someone in the entryway.

“Tyler,” the person says again, an affirmative, and Tyler sees that it’s the kid he fucked the other night. It’s glasses.

Fuckity fucking fuck. He knew they should have gone to the dining hall.

He makes to push around the guy, but glasses plants a hand on Tyler’s shoulder and shoves him hard. He stumbles back, almost dropping his phone, and then there’s a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye and Josh is there, shoving the guy back.

“Hey. Leave him alone.”

“This is amazing,” glasses says loudly, and by now half the people in the restaurant are looking at them. “Are you his boyfriend? You know he cheated on you, buddy? With me. So if I don’t kick his ass, someone should. Teach him a lesson.”

“Is there a problem here?” This from Carlie, whose gaze is flitting from glasses to Tyler to Josh and back.

Josh looks like he wants to say something else, but thinks better of it. “No. No, Carlie, there’s no problem. Tyler and I were just leaving.”

“But you just got-“

Josh is hauling Tyler up by the armpits and dragging him from the restaurant with glasses glaring after them.

In the parking lot Tyler brushes him off. “I’m fine.”

“That guy-“

“I slept with him two nights ago. Didn’t get his number, didn’t call him back, same as I do every time.”

“Except this time.”

Tyler puts his head in his hands and groans. “I don’t _do_ this. And this is exactly why.”

Josh tilts his head. “Why?”

“Because then shit gets all fucked up and makes me feel like…like…”

“Like you actually have emotions? Like you actually care about someone other than when you’re pushing your dick into their ass?” When Tyler looks up Josh is grinning. He spreads his arms wide. “All I’m saying is that I’ve slept with a lot of people, you’ve slept with even more. But this doesn’t have to be about that-“

“How can it not?”

“Easy.” Josh shrugs. “We make it not. We go get breakfast somewhere else and then we go back to my place and you do your homework and we try. That’s all you can do, really.”

“But there are-“ Tyler coughs and tries to make his heart stop beating so fast. “-there are guys like that all over campus, all around campus. Guys who wanna smash my face in because I never called them back or because I kicked them out after we fucked. Guys who’re gonna make this way more difficult than it needs to be.”

“This might be overstepping my boundaries, but you don’t strike me as the type of guy who quits things easily, Tyler. And I’m not either.”

“What about your guys, then? When we see guys you slept with it’s gonna be even worse because you’re _nice_. You actually made sure they had a good time and I’m sure half of them fucking fell in love with you. And I’m a jealous fuck, Josh, I can’t just-“

“Tyler.” Josh advances carefully, afraid of scaring Tyler. “Jealousy is like, a thing. Everyone gets jealous. Not many people own up to it, but you do. So that’s a step. You just have to trust that all the guys I’ve been with before? That’s done, no strings attached.”

“Well, what if-“

“Stop making excuses.” Josh finally puts a hand on Tyler’s shoulder and squeezes. “You still want breakfast?”

Tyler thinks. And then nods.

-

They get breakfast at McDonald’s and Tyler licks at the remnants of his McFlurry as they sit on Josh’s couch watching Black Mirror.

“You ever notice there are no gay characters in these shows?”

Tyler shakes his head. “Hetero culture, man. It’s a disease.”

A few minutes pass and Tyler leans forward to put his empty McFlurry cup on the coffee table. When he leans back he glances at Josh and finds him already staring.

“What?”

“I’m…regarding you.”

“I feel like I’m being analyzed.”

Josh tilts his head. “You wanna do your homework?”

He very much does not want to do his homework right now. “No. We can keep watching for a bit.”

“Can we, um. Would you mind if. Could we cuddle? I know that’s weird because it hasn’t been that long and earlier we kinda fought, but-“

Tyler anchors himself with the toe of his sock on the floor and pushes, sliding his body along the cushions until he’s pressed to Josh’s side. He curls his legs under him and butts his head against the underside of Josh’s jaw. “Get with the program.”

“Right,” Josh says, and winds an arm around Tyler’s shoulders.

They stay like that for a while, Josh’s breath rustling the hair at the top of Tyler’s head, until Tyler feels his eyes starting to slip closed, his mind wandering off. Back to the restaurant Josh had been so excited to take him to, before Tyler ruined things and got pushed around by glasses and they were forced to leave.

“Thanks for taking care of that guy,” Tyler mutters into Josh’s chest.

He feels Josh shrug. “I’m sorry you have to deal with guys like that.”

Tyler makes a small noise. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

Struggling to sit upright and wrench himself back from the edge of sleep, he blinks. “Don’t make it seem like I didn’t deserve that. It was my fault. If I wasn’t such an asshole to every guy I-“

Josh kisses him. Hard, on the mouth. His hands are in Tyler’s hair, palms stuck to the sides of Tyler’s head. Holding him there. Tyler balls a hand in Josh’s shirt when they part. “What-“

“We agreed not to talk about that. The past. You have guys, I have guys. They don’t _mean_ anything.” Josh presses his forehead hard to Tyler’s. “Okay? They don’t mean shit.”

“Okay.” Tyler’s next breath is shaky, lungs rattling against his ribs.

Josh can tell. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m…just…this is new. For me. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Josh gives a sweet kiss to Tyler’s forehead that makes his eyes sting. “You should do your homework, though.”

He starts with the studying he has to do for History. Josh helps him make flash cards and quizzes him on the information while they lay in bed, and Tyler earns a kiss for every one he gets right (and a few he doesn’t).

And then he pulls out his monologue and tells Josh not to laugh.

Josh doesn’t, as Tyler stumbles through the lines and bites at his lip and blushes wherever he has skin showing. Josh just kisses him, on his neck, the fingers not holding the paper, the apple of his cheek.

He finally gets it all down as the sun is setting, performs it with his back to Josh at the foot of the bed, wringing his hands together.

Josh claps and drags him back by the waist, flips him over and kisses him hard once more.

“You’re gonna get an A.”

“Or a D.”

Josh frowns.

“For this dick.”

Josh makes him wait to have sex again until after midnight, when it’s technically the next day, holds him down and fucks him within an inch of his life again.

Josh is right, he realizes as he lays beside him, drool seeping from the corner of Josh’s lips. He’ll never want anything other than this.

**Author's Note:**

> always taking requests at my [tumblr](http://vintagetyler.tumblr.com/).


End file.
